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Hammerskin Nation was a participant or observer in the following events:

Erich Josef Gliebe. [Source: Cleveland Scene]William Pierce, the founder of the neo-Nazi National Alliance (see 1970-1974) and the author of the inflammatory and highly influential white supremacist novel The Turner Diaries (see 1978) dies of cancer. He is replaced by Erich Josef Gliebe, a former boxer who runs Resistance Records, the Alliance-allied white power music label (see Late 1993 and Summer 1999), and publishes the label’s associated magazine, Resistance. Gliebe’s father was a member of the German Army during World War II, and Gliebe says he grew up “racially conscious.” Plans for Alliance after His Death - Pierce dies unexpectedly, but had long cited his failing health and advancing age as causes for concern, and said the Alliance must not make the mistakes of earlier white supremacist organizations such as the American Nazi Party (which fell apart after its leader and Pierce’s mentor, George Lincoln Rockwell, was assassinated in 1967) and the Christian Nationalist Crusade (which collapsed after the death of its leader Gerald L.K. Smith). He made careful arrangements for the Alliance to continue after his death, and leaves almost all of his personal property to the organization, including 230 acres of property in West Virginia that houses the Alliance’s compound and headquarters (see 1985), along with some 60 acres belonging to Pierce’s “Cosmotheist Community Church,” which he has tried to classify as tax-exempt (see 1978). Multi-Million Dollar Business - Under Gliebe’s leadership, the Alliance generates over $4 million a year in income, largely from the sale of white power music recordings, books, videos, and related merchandise. It broadcasts a weekly radio program, American Dissident Voices. In August 2002, the Center for New Community writes that the Alliance will likely “continue to play a strong role in the contemporary white nationalist movement, particularly by recruiting young people through its white power music distribution and merchandising.” (The organization has been particularly successful at disseminating its message during concerts by the Texas thrash-metal group Pantera, whose lead singer has worn pro-fascist shirts on stage; Alliance members hand out recruitment flyers at the shows headlined: “Remember when Heavy Metal was for Whites only? We do!”) It sells two video games, one called “Ethnic Cleansing,” where players get to exterminate minority citizens in a graphic, brutal “first-person shooter” style. Largest Neo-Nazi Group in North America - The Alliance claims over 2,500 members and units or “proto-units” (local groups that have met membership requirements but not yet been sanctioned by national headquarters) in 43 American and five Canadian cities, making it the largest and best-organized neo-Nazi group in North America. It has more than doubled its membership since the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995). Moderating Message, Expanding Contact with Similar Groups - Pierce led the organization in “moderating” its message, abandoning the Klan robes, brown Nazi-like uniforms, camouflage attire, and coarse racial slurs that other groups often sport. Leonard Zeskind of the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights has written: “Their only uniform will be their white skins. They will seek to establish a white nation-state, with definable economic, political, and racial borders, out of the wreckage they hope to create of the United States. And from Pierce they will have learned the arts and sciences of Aryan revolution.” Along with their white power musical concerts and rallies, Alliance members have marched with neo-Confederate groups and worked with younger, more violent “skinhead” groups. Generally, the Alliance shuns many public rallies, preferring instead to “build a revolutionary infrastructure” by training what the Center for New Community will call “dedicated cadres of activists outside the eye of the public.” It has worked closely with the more overtly violent Hammerskin Nation, both in distributing “white power” music (the “Hammerskins” distribute music through Panzerfaust Records) and coordinating public activities. White Supremacists Praise Pierce after Death - A number of white supremacist leaders will praise Pierce in the days after his death. Former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke says Pierce “helped people think straight about the Jewish Question and the other vital realities of race.” The overtly racist British National Party (BNP) says in a statement: “The death of Dr. Pierce has opened a huge gap in the nationalist movement in the United States. We hope for the sake of the future generations of white children for whom he felt so strongly that it will not be filled by crude inferior copies of William Pierce—the man was unique!” Dan Gentry of Christian Research praises “Pierce’s love and concern for the racial camaraderie of Celto-Saxons.” Richard Butler, the head of the neo-Nazi Aryan Nations (see Early 1970s), says, “The White Aryan race has lost a great intellectual mind and a Noble Warrior for Gods [sic] eternal truth.” And Matthew Hale, the leader of the violent separatist World Church of the Creator (see May 1996 and After), writes, “We appreciate the comradeship of many National Alliance members over the years and undoubtedly [Pierce’s] presence will be missed.” [Center for New Community, 8/2002 ]

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